Hindus pressured to convert to Christianity through promises of free treatment and medicines, threatened to kill for resisting
Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, India 
13 October, 2025
Case Summary
Hindus in Barkhedi village, located near the Sehore district headquarters of Madhya Pradesh, were pressured to embrace Christianity through deceptive promises of treatment and free medicines. The case came to light after two residents, Suresh Barela and Vanesingh Vishwakarma, lodged a complaint at the Kotwali police station. The accused were identified as Mahesh, along with his accomplices Gopal Varela and Pyar Singh Barela, who had been visiting the victims for about fifteen days, urging them to attend prayer gatherings, claiming that their illnesses would be cured and financial aid would follow. On the night of 29 October 2025, a meeting was held at Vanesingh Vishwakarma’s house, where the accused intensified the pressure, asserting that the victims’ problems would only end if they converted to Christianity. When Suresh and Vanesingh resisted, the accused abused them and threatened to kill them. Several villagers witnessed the altercation, after which the victims approached the police. Following the complaint, the Kotwali police registered a case against the three accused under the Indian Penal Code and the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act and arrested them. The arrested accused were identified as Mahesh Barela, son of Khaom Singh Barela, resident of Fagia police station, Ichhawar, Gopal Barela, son of Padya Barela, resident of Kausambi district, Khargone and Pyar Singh Barela, son of Khuman Singh Barela, resident of Diwal, Pandhana district, Khandwa. The investigation was handed over to Sub-Inspector Shyam Kumar Ahirwar, who confirmed that strict action would follow if the charges were substantiated. The incident triggered widespread anger in Barkhedi. Residents and Hindu organisations condemned the attempt to lure poor and ill villagers under the pretext of faith healing. They asserted that religion should stem from belief, not from greed or coercion.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The first subcategory under this is: Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. The second subcategory under this is: Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. Another primary category in this case is: Hate speech against Hindus. The subcategory under this is: Violent threats. Violent threats, explicit, implicit or implied, is the most dangerous form of hate speech since it goes beyond discriminatory and prejudicial language to express the intent of causing harm to an individual or a group of people based on their religious identity and faith. There could be several different kinds of threats that are issued to Hindus based on religious animosity. An explicit threat would mean the direct threat of violence towards an individual Hindu, a group of Hindus or Hindus at large. Physical violence, death threats, threats of destruction of property belonging to Hindus and threats of genocide would mean explicit threats against Hindus for their religious identity. Implicit threats may not be a direct threat but implied through the use of symbols of actions – for example – in the Nupur Sharma case, other than explicit threats, there were also implicit threats when Islamists took to the streets to burn and beat her effigies. It implies that they want to do the same to Nupur Sharma – thereby is considered an implicit threat. Violent threats can be delivered in person, through letters, phone calls, graffiti, or increasingly through social media and other online platforms. It would be important to understand that a threat – explicit or implicit, online or offline – to an individual who happens to be a Hindu does not qualify as a religiously motivated threat. Such a threat, while vile and dangerous, could be owing to non-religious reasons and/or personal animosity. To qualify as a religiously motivated threat, it would need to exhibit an indication that the individual is being targeted for religious reasons and/or owing to his/her religious identity as a Hindu. This case has been included in the Hinduphobia Tracker because it exemplifies Predatory Proselytisation, a practice where conversion efforts are carried out not through open persuasion or theological debate, but through inducement, deception, and exploitation of vulnerability. In Barkhedi village of Sehore district, the victims were targeted precisely because they were poor, ailing, and therefore susceptible to manipulation. The perpetrators did not offer them medicine or treatment as an act of charity or neighbourly goodwill; rather, they tied those offers to a conditional act of renunciation of faith. Such conduct transforms a seemingly benign act of assistance into an instrument of coercion, where physical suffering and financial hardship are weaponised to engineer religious conversion. The conversion attempt in this case was not an isolated spiritual outreach; it was a calculated effort to erode the victims’ Hindu faith by exploiting their distress. The accused deliberately approached Hindus who were facing illness and economic challenges, offered them false assurances of miraculous healing, and then linked those promises to the adoption of Christianity. This element of inducement is not merely unethical but amounts to psychological coercion, for it preys upon the human instinct for relief and survival. When religion is made conditional upon physical well-being or economic benefit, it ceases to be an act of voluntary faith and becomes an act of predation. Further, when the victims refused to yield, the perpetrators resorted to verbal abuse and death threats. This escalation reflects an animosity not merely towards the individuals but towards their identity as Hindus who chose to remain steadfast in their belief. The act of threatening to kill them for rejecting conversion constitutes religiously motivated coercion. The purpose of these threats was to instil fear and to compel the victims to abandon their faith. Such hostility, directed at an individual’s refusal to change religion, demonstrates clear intent to suppress Hindu identity and freedom of belief. The presence of Hate Speech Against Hindus is also evident in this incident through the use of violent threats and intimidation. Hate speech in such contexts need not take the form of public statements; it manifests equally when an individual is threatened for affirming their Hindu faith. The warning that divine punishment would follow if they refused to convert, coupled with explicit threats of physical harm, carries within it the essence of religious hate. It communicates to the victims that their religion itself is inferior, invalid, or punishable. This psychological aggression, when framed within a religious context, directly targets the dignity and spiritual autonomy of Hindus. What makes this case significant is the combination of economic manipulation, psychological coercion, and overt threats, all directed at Hindus for the purpose of religious conversion. Each of these actions, though distinct in nature, collectively forms a continuum of hate. It begins with deceitful inducement, progresses to intimidation, and culminates in threats of violence. The shared motivation underlying all these acts is the rejection of the victims’ religious identity and the intent to replace it with that of the perpetrators’ faith. Therefore, this case is categorised as a hate crime against Hindus because it directly targeted Hindu individuals for the explicit purpose of erasing their faith identity. The perpetrators exploited poverty and illness, conditions of human vulnerability, to advance religious conversion, and when the victims resisted, they were met with abuse and death threats. The entire sequence of actions was driven by hostility towards the victims’ religion and by the intent to subvert it. This hostility, expressed through inducement and intimidation alike, places the crime squarely within the framework of religiously motivated hatred. Disclaimer: As per the details in the report, the victims had been pressured to convert for about fifteen days before the incident was formally reported on 29 October 2025. Therefore, for record-keeping purposes, the date of the incident has been considered as 14 October 2025, marking the beginning of the period during which the victims were being coerced to convert. Disclaimer: The number of victims in this case has been recorded as 2, corresponding to Suresh Barela and Vanesingh Vishwakarma, who formally lodged the complaint and actively resisted the conversion attempts. While multiple individuals in the village were subjected to similar coercion, only these two victims came forward to report the incident; therefore, the victim count has been limited to 2 for documentation purposes.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 2
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 2
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 2
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Christian Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
